Fortunately, it was not my 35th wedding anniversary but rather marked seven years writing this general-interest column on Saturdays. That adds up to 364 columns of 700 words, for a total of more than a quarter-million words.

Hence, a timely topic seems to be to discuss my wordiness.

Rather, my newfound brevity, because for 25 years I wrote a sports column of 800 to 850 words each.

When I began this new, 700-word challenge, it felt like trying to pack for a two-week vacation in a school backpack. I found myself still saying hello to an essay subject when it was time to bid goodbye.

But a funny thing happened: My frustration slowly shrank, and I found myself enjoying the haiku-like difficulty. I also found truth in Ben Franklin’s apology to a friend: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”

I still usually start by writing north of 900 words, but then I must take the time to write a shorter letter. Oftentimes, eliminating 200 words takes longer than writing the original draft. Trimming the final dozen words alone to get below 700 can take an hour.

Here again I find inspiration in others. Ernest Hemingway had his “Iceberg Theory” in which he believed that the seven-eighths a writer leaves out is as important as the eigthth he puts above water.

The poet John Ruskin put it this way: “Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.”

My writing idol, the late Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist Jim Murray, once told me: “Try not to run out of your allotment of commas.” He explained that before filing a column, he would re-read it one final time and replace as many commas as possible with periods.

Mark Twain felt similarly about adjectives, advising: “As to the adjective, when in doubt, strike it out.”

In other words, easy reading is hard work. It requires rewriting, striking out words, rewriting again.

“I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter,” the outstanding novelist James Michener said.

Again from Hemingway, who was more blunt than Michener: “The first draft of anything is (doo-doo).” Although Papa didn’t say “doo-doo.”

Henry Beston, an acclaimed author and naturalist, said he sometimes spent an entire morning on a single sentence. Oscar Wilde was even more painstaking, being credited with saying: “I spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out.”

The importance of a comma or a single word is no small thing. Mark Twain, no doubt taking the time to craft a shorter letter, wrote to George Bainton: “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”